What level would you rate this stance?

[WhatGravitas]

So what makes this so powerful then? I fail to see it. (I must note that Vorpal is banned from our campaigns)

While dice are not multiplied, bonuses are: Power attacking raging barbarians, wielding great swords. Or a falchion:

Granted, a single improvement is not that good, but if you use it on something like... a falchion, you get a crit range of 12-20, meaning you threaten a critical hit with most of your successful attacks.

Raging gives you +4 Str, that gives +3 damage (two-handed), +2 to hit. Now use power attack to convert the +2 to hit to damage - +4 (for being two-handed), meaning raging gives you a net of +7 damage. If you can reliably do critical hits with that, it basically means additional +7 damage for the price of a feat (and/or keen) and a stance. Find another feat or stance that gives you that.

And once your barbarian/martial adept starts to rise in level and gets more strength/attack bonus from... anything (from buffs to weapon bonuses), you can rack up even more damage - and the criticals double that very efficiently.

And power attacking and raging also meshes with Bo9S quite well.

Basically, the problem about higher threat range is: It's very random. Doubling your damage is very powerful (if used right) or next to useless (if not abused) - and 3.5E designers basically tried to err on the safe side.

For the stance: Also about 6th-level. The other stances are often better.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Zachariah]

Ok, that was insightful! thanks, both of you.
After reading your replies I believe ill make the following out of it:

Level 6:
Eye of Massacre: (Stance) - This stance doubles the critical threat range when using small piercing weapons. This effect stacks with other effects that increase threat range.

That way it still covers all the discipline's favored weapons, without really calling them. Found it a bit strange to say; these 4 weapons are effect, the rest isnt. So, it should be ok like this?

Btw, to be sure the STR modifier and Power Attack bonus multiply along with the normal weapon damage? Enhancement (+1) bonus damage aswell, right? Anything else?

 

[Arkhandus]

Yeah, Strength bonus to damage, enhancement bonus to damage, and Power Attack bonus to damage are all multiplied normally on a critical hit.

However, note that light weapons (in 3.5 rules) get no damage bonus from Power Attack. With the exception of unarmed strikes and natural weapons...... Yes, it's wierd. The 3.5 Revision is full of wierd rulings that have no grounding in rationality or game balance.

I'm assuming, anyway, that when you say "small piercing weapons" you mean "light piercing weapons". That's 3.5 terminology anyway.

And yes, it should be alright like that. Especially if it is meant for light weapons, since they're far, far, far less abusable in damage output.

 

[Zachariah]

Ok, got it.

And, yes, I ment light melee weapons. Used the 3.0 book for a quick look up, now noticing that they changed the naming for that weapon group in 3.5, for small to light. Well anyway, fixed that aswell. Great now the school is finished! thanks a lot for the insight and info.

 

[starwed]

I've just checked the Epic Feats SRD and this is definitely better than the Overwhelming Critical Epic feat.

A lot of epic feats are substantially worse than the upper level stances. (A lot of epic feats are hideously underpowered in any case.)

I'd say that restricting it to light melee weapons makes it pretty balanced, considering the other stances out there.